Badge Summit 2022

How can educational organizations use digital credentials to improve the education to employment pathway while maintaining the highest data ethics standards?

This session will be led by the co-founders of one of the original Open Badge platforms: One is a data ethicist, the other is a business infrastructure engineer.

We will explore:

• The ethical failures of existing algorithmic hiring practices
• How to address those failures by improving the quality and quantity of data associated with digital credentials
• How to do this while complying with the highest ethical standards

We will provide a roadmap for educational organizations trying to create ethical pathways from educaiton to employment. We will also touch on the emerging ideas around Self-Sovereign Identity and Verifiable Credentials and how to build a future-ready badge program.

With the growth of digital credentials, professionals of all kinds are delivered assets that can help them be discovered and recognized for their knowledge, skills and abilities.  Credentials are intended to be a kind of currency that can be used in how people search for work, and how they are discovered by employers.  In order to drive the best outcomes, credentials should be designed with the resume in mind.  In this session we will discuss what SmartResume has learned about the credential space, how organizations can set their learners up for success, and the characteristics of credentials that make incredible resume content.

The Institute of Excellence in Early Care and Education at Palm Beach State College is innovating professional development for Palm Beach County's early childhood professionals. Badging recognizes key skills and knowledge that early childhood professionals acquire. Their education matters! They make the difference in the success of children, and children are the future! The Micro-credential Program is composed of identified education pathways that advances early childhood professionals to achieving proficiency in employability skills deemed essential for being successful.

The Krause Center for Innovation at Foothill College is reimagining our statewide professional learning programs for California educators. We all know that educators are exhausted and in need of more choice, voice, and ownership of their professional learning pathways. How are certificate programs flexing to meet this need? Let’s take a moment to consider the impact of digital credentials when integrated into statewide professional learning certificate programs as a way to increase engagement, content mastery, and social-emotional health and wellness. We’ll explore the power of bringing instructional design and subject matter expertise together for a fully integrated statewide badging program.

There is no one particular way to go about micro-credential development. Dive into some essential questions that must be addressed as you plan to develop or strengthen your micro-credential initiative. Many people, new to micro-credential development, begin with the question “How?” How do you build a micro-credential initiative? Hear about the importance of answering the Why, Who, and What questions as you start or scale. Examples of different responses and approaches will be shared. 

Panelists will discuss the co-development of Micro-credentials in communities of practice with school community leaders in several educational systems in New York, New Mexico and Title 1 schools. The panel including school administrators, researchers, and instructional designers will explore: Using design thinking to unpack relevant frameworks to identify skills and dispositions. Engaging participants in co-designing MCs applying the design process to uncover learning pathways.

Demand is growing for educational pathways that enable learners to combine and document disciplinary expertise and technical training with specialized language skills. The field of language education and higher education, in general, have largely failed to provide opportunities to meet this need. This presentation will discuss some promising examples of educational pathways combining disciplinary study with language education and provide a rationale for how MeTabi, Inc., a new language learning platform, plans to implement badging to help learners document and communicate their specialized language knowledge to future employers.

There is no go-to source of information on the quality of any of these credentials, programs, or providers—whether public, private, in-person, online, nonprofit, or for-profit. The lack of credible data creates widespread confusion for consumers and perpetuates inequities that severely limit who has access to economic opportunity in the United States.

At EQOS at JFF, we are filling this critical gap. Our vision is to be the most useful and user-friendly source of trusted information on the quality of short-term education and training programs and credentials in the United States.

This session will focus on JFF’s work with Education Quality Outcomes Standards, which helps learners and workers, education institutions and postsecondary training providers, state agencies, and other stakeholders identify high-quality opportunities that lead to equitable economic advancement. We will discuss EQOS’ methodologies for evaluating programs along a continuum of quality, JFF’s platform for coordinated action and impact, and new tools we’re developing for identifying and navigating education and career opportunities.

Workforce skill descriptions are often without levels because it’s easier. Yet there’s a great level of difference in knowledge between a just-starting- out python developer and experienced full stack python engineer. This presentation will demonstrate advances in AI that can help make skill level descriptions up to date with open data sources and thus more equatable for both universities, employers and job seekers. 

CO ASCD, a professional education organization in Colorado, offers teacher micro-credentials as evidence of leadership skills and knowledge. Learn how this work can propel teacher understanding of equity and diversity while building their leadership skills and in so doing, transform the culture in their schools. 

How can students demonstrate mastery – while showing who they are as individual learners? In this session, we will walk through the stages of using digital badges to help each of your students fulfill a “Vision of a Graduate.” We’ll focus on three components: 1) defining the vision; 2) linking student projects and assignments to earn badges; and 3) helping students express their individual strengths and personal growth. We will discuss practical strategies that you can apply to your setting.

Open Bagdes currently are the the most fit recognition technology to support microcredentialing strategies.  Why ?

Microcredentialing frameworks are emerging across the globe (AustraliAsia, Europe, North America) with some guidance around informaiton models.

What metadata to use in describing/credentialing microcredentials.

How might we take this guidance into data models that can be supported by Open Badges? Is it and overkill?

Explore how your district can better engage administrators, educators and tech leaders in their professional development through the use of digital badges. You’ll learn how to implement digital badges and move from a paper-based demonstration of professional learning to a fully digital system.

Bringing innovation to schools is hard – but digital badges can make it easier. In this session, you’ll learn how looking carefully at student work and awarding badges can help schools successfully bring their initiatives to life. As an example, you’ll see how one urban K-8 charter school uses digital badges to support its implementation of Dual Language Immersion and Problem-Based Learning. You will have the chance to discuss how badges can make your school’s initiatives more engaging.